Always one to try out a new cuisine (anyone know any good Filipino spots?) I visited Hamer Restaurant on Goldhawk Road for Ethiopian at the suggestion of the Mouse.

We kicked off with a quick discussion to decide if I was a cultural imperialist for enjoying being the only white man in a restaurant (no, but the fetishisation of why white people find this so appealing warrants further exploration). The modus operandi with Ethiopian is to get an injera, a spongy sourdough flatbread onto which various stews, chickpea meals, and curried vegetables are dumped. Tearing off sections of the injera with your right hand you make your way around the assembled toppings, eating hand to mouth.

After a sticky journey on the central line this obviously required a hand washing. Hamer is home to my least favourite restaurant toilets in London. For all the generic guff opening up around Frith street at least you can say the toilets don't feel like the sewage store in a decrepit U-Boat. Forget the hand wash you'll need a shower.

A spicy lamb stew was a blitzed salty ooze, faintly organic looking, and tasty when scooped up on a torn sheaf of sourdough. The shiro, similarly ladled onto our pancake, was a chickpea-based stew, rich and nutty.

The injera expands in your stomach like a balloon. After what seemed like a few modest bites I could barely move. All in all a satisfying binge in amidst the relative culinary paucity of the Shepherd's Bush area.